The Gift
by Prosperina
Summary: Addison receives a gift, and she's the only one who doesn't care what it is. Except she does. Mark x Addison


**_Summary:_** Addison receives a gift, and she's the only one who doesn't care what it is. (Except she does.)

**_Notes_:** Written for irinafan as part of the livejournal community greysexchange.  
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**_Disclaimer:_** All characters belong to Shonda Rhimes & co.

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**THE GIFT**

* * *

It was a glorious day at Seattle Grace. The sun was finally shining high in the sky, and everything else seemed to have fallen into place. It was positively chirpy inside, and Addison Forbes Montgomery had not caught a single ill-disguised giggle or sly glance from the doctors and nurses who usually had one reserved especially for her. Even the spy-nurse who had been unofficially assigned to her – Addison suspected all doctors were assigned at least one spy-nurse; Meredith Grey most likely was being trailed by two – had greeted her with an innocuous smile.

_I should move to L.A._, she mused, before laughing at the absurdity of the idea.

Derek may now officially be her ex-husband, and he may be dating Meredith Grey, but Addison honestly could not care less. She even smiled beatifically at them as she made her way to the Chief, but only received two very baffled looks in return. From somewhere to her left, she heard Dr. Stevens whisper, "Wow, McSteamy really _does_ do miracles…" but Addison ignored that as well.

"Good morning, Richard," she said.

The Chief put his charts down on the nurses' station and regarded her with a bemused smile. "Morning, Addison. You're in a good mood today."

"I certainly am."

"It's sunny," Mark said suddenly from beside her, appearing out of nowhere.

"It certainly is," she replied.

One week earlier, in one of their many _tête-à-têtes_, he'd told her that he would be flying back to New York to sell his share of the practice and to sub-let his apartment. She'd half-expected him not to return. She had been adamant that there was nothing here for him in Seattle: no best friend, no her, and definitely no good weather.

Despite this, he had apparently opted to stay.

She was slightly afraid to find out what else would just fall into his lap upon his return.

"Why, Addie, I haven't seen a smile like that from you since New York."

"I usually wait until you have your back turned. It's a bit dangerous, you know, to have too much of the full effect."

He grinned at her, and suddenly it struck her how easy it was to fall back into that easy banter with Mark. It felt like it was way back when, before the affair, before the unhappy marriage that was not between them, before the unspoken words and secret looks. It was uncomplicated, like when they were just friends. (And, here, it struck her how far back she had to cast her mind to get to that point.)

"What's changed?"

"It's sunny."

He nodded. "It certainly is."

"You know, this is the first time since I've moved to Seattle that I've seen the whole thing, unobstructed by bits of Grey Fluff?" She sighed wistfully. "Four months, and this is the first time."

"Well, here's to many, many more sunny days." Mark brought out a beatific smile of his own, and added, "This is for you."

Addison looked down and noticed for the first time that he had been carrying a large white box with an equally obnoxious silver ribbon on top. He handed it to her. She reluctantly took it. He gave one last smile – now threatening to turn back into the normal smirk – and wandered off down the hall.

With that, her good mood dropped. It dropped with a _plomp!_ and was followed by a _hiss_.

She wasn't sure whose eyes were wider: hers or the spy-nurse's.

(The Chief's eyes were probably staring down an incompetent intern in some far-off hospital room; Addison did not even notice him leave.)

She mourned the spell of uncomplicatedness, so easily broken, and it might have been her imagination, but Addison would swear that in the distance she heard the first droplets of rain.

x

She ignored it at first – or as best she could when her arms was full of it and its awkward angles.

Addison unceremoniously dropped it into the black-hole-corner of her office in the hopes that things would rewind, in the hopes that when she returned after the scheduled surgery, The Box would be gone.

She hoped.

x

Alex Karev pricked that dream like a five-year-old with a balloon.

The first words to leave his mouth were, "So, I heard you got a special delivery today," and her first words were, "So, I'm sending you to the pit."

It wasn't until much later that she realized he'd been referring to the conjoined twins due in the afternoon. Oh well. She was sure the punishment was not undeserved, even if she didn't yet know of the act that made it deserving. Besides, he wasn't allowed to call her Satan for nothing

One successful surgery and an up-to-date set of post-op notes later, Addison returned to her office to find the box still there, shiny and untouched (and un-disappeared).

She closed the door with a huff.

x

Two hours later, in the cafeteria, Addison was ambushed by Callie Torres.

"So, I heard you got a special delivery today," to which Addison bit into a particularly crunchy apple and replied, "Yep. Conjoined twins."

But, of course, she wasn't that lucky.

"Yeah, yeah, conjoined twins, conjoined triplets, quintuplets – whatever. I meant The Box that Sloan gave you. What is it?"

_Damn that spy-nurse and her unbelievable powers!_

"I don't know. I haven't opened it yet."

"Oh, don't give me that," Callie rolled her eyes. "You can flick your perfect red hair, bite that _ridiculously_ crunchy apple and make everyone else believe that you are not at all curious about the gift your ex-mistress, ex-and-maybe-sometimes-current-lover gave you, but I am not fooled. Do you hear me? _Not fooled_."

Addison tried to suppress a smile.

"Bad night?"

"You have no idea. But we're not talking about me – what's in The Box? How can you not be in your office right now, tearing into that thing like it's Christmas?"

"Uh, because it's May. And I don't care what's in it."

"Right."

And she didn't.

But that wasn't to say that, during the short walk from the nurses' station to her office, she hadn't picked up some clues:

1. It was bigger than a breadbox. Too big to contain a cake – unless it was a wedding cake, but that was extremely unlikely.

2. Too heavy to be a cake – again, unless it was a wedding cake, because who knew what sort of things they put in there? (Addison made a mental note to slip that question into a conversation with Dr. Stevens.)

3. It rattled lightly when she shook it. God, she hoped it wasn't a slutty nurse's outfit.

4. No immediate odors were detected upon the very scientific process of sniffing.

5. Not fragile – she'd dropped it from a little higher than necessary to determine that.

"Not curious at all."

Callie's eye twitched. Addison recognized this to be the start of the next Inquisition, but luckily she was saved by the pager.

"You are so lucky there are people with broken bones in this hospital…" Callie grumbled.

Addison waggled her fingers in lieu of a goodbye.

Lady Luck. It looked like she was back.

x

Alex Karev rejoined her for the afternoon surgery with a surly and petulant look on his face, but at least he didn't mouth off. The surgery again (and of course) was a success. She scheduled another for the following week to separate the babies.

Lady Luck abandoned her for the second time at approximately 2:30pm, when Derek spotted her from the other end of the hallway.

Addison paused for a moment. It was too late to duck around a corner as he had already seen her; it was too late to pretend to wander back in the other direction because he knew that _she'd_ already seen _him_.

Addison briefly wished for Meredith Grey to suddenly appear between them, as she had many times throughout the recent months, but Addison supposed even that would not help. The way Derek was all thunderstorm at the moment, he looked like he would have huffed-and-puffed and blew Meredith and her skinny frame away.

"If you're not here to congratulate me about the conjoined twins, I don't want to hear it."

"Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"Congratulations, also," Derek said pleasantly, "on your new happy and _adulterous_ relationship."

"And who would I be committing adultery on – you? In case you've forgotten, and it wouldn't surprise me considering the number of times you've forgotten the state of our marriage over the last five years, we are no longer married."

"So you are in a relationship!" He said triumphantly.

"It's none of your business whether we are or aren't."

"And what was the present? Probably something sleazy," he mused. "Something designed to get you in bed with him."

"Well, that doesn't make any sense, Derek, because according to _you_, I'm already there."

"You're forgetting, Addison, I know how Mark works. He doesn't really care about you, he just wants a challenge. And you're the biggest challenge of all: his best friend's wife."

She took a deep breath against the cutting words.

"That's not how it was, Derek."

"And you fell for it."

"Maybe that is how it was," Mark's smooth voice cut in. "But that doesn't change the fact that you weren't there."

These were the two men Addison knew best in the entire world, but as she watched them engage in staring contest, she found their expressions to be utterly unreadable. They almost mirrored each other: jaws clenched, eyes narrowed, nostrils caught in an ever-so-slight flare.

Derek was the reflection to walk away.

And then there were two.

"You didn't open my gift," Mark said finally. "You should. You'll like it."

She watched as he strode into her office as if it were an everyday occurrence (although if it was, perhaps her black-hole-corner was not that much of a mystery after all). He reappeared a few seconds later with The Box and deposited it into her arms for the second time.

Addison stared at it warily.

"Don't worry. It's not a French maid outfit." He smirked. "Or a nurse's."

"It'd better not be."

She carefully pushed the bow aside and lifted the lid.

Inside, nestled against sky blue tissue paper were three (or technically six) things Addison had thought she would never see again.

Navy slingbacks accented with silver by Christian LaCroix.

Caramel-colored pumps by Prada.

Black suede peep-toes by Manolo Blahnik.

The last time they met, she'd been hurling them at Mark's head after a particularly vicious argument. They all missed, but one clipped his shoulder. She had a special place in her heart for those peep-toes.

"Oh, Mark," she whispered as she stared up at him, one hand still caressing the suede.

He grinned. "I knew you'd like it." He pressed a quick kiss against her cheek and ambled down the hallway.

She watched him go.

Outside, the birds were chirping.

* * *

**FINIS**


End file.
